Interest Groups Who Gets?

Some political experts basically consider the interest groups as crucial players in the winning ability of a political candidate from its campaign period to the policy-making stage. A win-win situation is the preconditioning method in positioning both candidacy and legislation. The interest groups in the parliament may be viewed as interacting within their respective political parties in which partisanship is considered as “moving the walls of laws” that belongs to a majority ruling party which has the ax to grind the minority contenders.

From this point of view, the interest groups ensure the leverage of a beneficial policy. This paper will discuss and examine the political interest groups of the parliament based on the inclusion of statistical data that points out to contributors and recipients of support in the intricacies of policy legislation. Who Gets? The question of “who gets? ” refers to the recipient of external support who is also perceived as a benefactor of support way up to parliament. Another qualification is in receipt of the amount contributions to a particular committee.

In this case, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce is the focal point of the question. According to the studies conducted by US-based Open Secret organization, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce (formerly known as Commerce Committee) is where the largest legislative battles begin. This committee is the vanguard of deregulating the telecommunication industry, the maintenance of promotional standards of drug companies and the body that changes the nation’s health care laws.

The statistical data of Open Secret revealed that the members of committee-related industries received contributions from related industries. To substantiate the statistical data, Open Secret disclosed the top twenty political contributors and their amount of contributions. Based on the data, the health professionals place first with $2,315,731. 00 in contributions, the pharmaceuticals/health products place fourth with $1,104,642.

00, and oil and gas placed 10th placer with $608,738. 00. Likewise, the data showed the division of the contributions per political parties are: (1) from health professionals: 57% for Democrats and 43% for Republicans, (2) from pharmaceuticals/health products” 51% for Democrats and 49% for Republicans, and (3) oil and gas: 45% for Democrats and 55% for Republicans. It may be observed from the data that the oil and gas sector was the meager contributor.

Looking at the jurisdiction of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, the oil and gas sector is at the 14th agenda and may be perceived as insignificant as compared to the the 10 priority sectors in which health professional and pharmaceutical/health products belong. Conclusion The House Committee on Energy and Commerce is a predominant body of the US 110th Congress. On the other hand, the political sensibility in legislation is characterized by a dominant political leadership in the sub-committees, in which the majority of chairmanship belongs to the Republicans.

This perception may not be disregarded by the prominence of the Energy and Commerce Committee being a vanguard in the battles of legislation as previously mentioned. This partisanship in legislation may always be considered as political bickering which is categorically enticed by conflict of interest and the political pressure from the interest groups. Thus, the “who gets? ” may be an alignment and political positioning of those who wants to give and get in return.